


one's price

by Scribe of Santhoven (RaisingCaiin)



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: (this got intense), (unreliable af narrator), Character Study, Class Differences, Flirting, POV First Person, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 15:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14239875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/Scribe%20of%20Santhoven
Summary: Kaehlan airs class issues, dreams of anarchy, and invents talk therapy.





	one's price

**Author's Note:**

> . . . bee i held up my end of the bargain, in fact i exceeded it by like 500 words

I –

Gods.

Gods, this is harder than I thought it would be. _Hem_.

[the elf coughed]

No, no, it’s all right, I’m not leaving. Just standing. Pick up your pen. I promise you’ll be paid tonight, whether or not I can force myself through this story.

Anyway.

And you’re writing down every word as I say it, yes? Just as I say it? No, no, I don’t mean to insult you, I – I just wanted to make sure. I can’t – I can’t read, what you’re writing. I have to trust you, and that – that doesn’t come easy to me. It is no judgment of you. If anything, it is a judgment on me.

But no matter. Every word just as I say it, all right?

All right.

Thank you.

His name is Brelyeis. He is a councilman, further north. No, don’t worry about where, precisely: it doesn’t matter, for tonight, and it’s probably safer if I don’t tell you. Besides – with the gods’ blessings you’ll never meet him.

But I have. Obviously. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, waffling about like a child afraid to tell the truth and risk the beating if he isn’t believed.

Gods damn. Gods _damn_.

Hem. So. Brelyeis.

I had just met my current companions, and it was not a good first impression, I’m afraid. I could say that I was cold, and tired, and starving, and even if all those things are true they still don’t justify the conclusions that I leapt to then. Little could. But my companions have proven truer than I deserved, despite our rough start.

That night, though? Then came Brelyeis.

The first I knew of him was his hands on my back. One moment, there was no one behind me – the next, there was. And he took my shoulders. Pulled me to that table. Made me sit.

 _Gods_. I am not –

Anyway. The sad part, little one? As much as the memory makes me rage at him for handling me so, I am ten times as furious with myself, for letting him.

For –

I went as he directed. I sat.

And then he addressed us.  

“Gentlemen. And madam.”

It _is_ funny, isn’t it, little one? It’s all right, I see you looking, I don’t mind. It is obvious, though, isn’t it? I am no gentleman. “ _Gentlemen_.” [the elf spat] That is a title meant for those with names that will ease their way in the world because the common folk fear them. Or else money to the same end. Or else lines that kings legitimized because they killed for the right people. And worse, it is a title meant as an intimate address among such names. Gentlemen know each other. Gentlemen plan their little games and plot their little wars together.

It is not a title for those such as you and me. It is a title for those who rule such as you and me.

Brelyeis was mocking me from the very first.

To continue, though.

Brelyeis then assumed that we three were all there together, awaiting his pleasure. No, no, I know, I know – I had done much the same to the other two at that table not three moments earlier, hadn’t I? I had. I will say it again – my companions now, and some few we have met along our way to date, are more than I deserve, and they will leave this mad venture alive if I have to pact with the gods themselves.

Yes, yes, you can write that. _Please_ write that. No, I don’t care if you think the gods don’t like their likenesses put to paper. _Write it._

Thank you.

All right.

What happened from there is expectable enough, at first. Brelyeis offered us gold – a fair sum – to do some errand for him, and told us that we might fight amongst ourselves to settle how to split it.  

[the elf paused for some time]

No, no, that’s not the end, it’s just – I am ashamed of what comes next.

Because then I turned and became what he thought I was: a sodding lick-boot. I lied, and I told him I knew his man, and that I was the one who had been contracted, and that he should step away with me so that we two alone might discuss the gold.

Little one, I am ashamed. I am so ashamed. I had already seen hints of how little he cared for any of us, and still I did that.

But my companions are stout folk [the elf laughed], and even then they didn’t take my nonsense, and we fought for a time over which one of us had been the one Brelyeis’s man had contracted when of course it had been none of us! [the elf laughed again] That part I will never regret recalling. It is a wonderful forecast of the group we would become.

~~And then I became stupid.~~

No, no, perhaps you’re right to look at me with such disbelief. Can you scratch that out? Write instead, that I became more stupid. Those are the right words? Yes? Good. Thank you.

For I took his wine. Brelyeis’s. When it seemed that I would not get the money all to myself, and I couldn’t bend this “gentleman”’s eye to myself alone, I antagonized him – a bent has always been my bane.

No, no, I _did_ mean for you to write that. Every word as I say it, remember?

So. I took his wine, and I held his eyes as I drank it, and it was good, as far as a palate used to homelier drink could tell. It was sweet, and it was not meant for me, and by all the gods that made it sweeter still.

He simply sighed, and signed for another, but – oh, I knew even then that I would pay for that move. And gods help us all, but I didn’t care. And only see where that has led us, eh?

For surely you can see the fault in my reasoning, little one, yes? The fatal crack that would eventually lead me here? No? Really? Well, then, let me tell you, that you never do the same.

The fatal flaw lay in my believing that he would treat with me fair, and then in pushing him when he did not. Pushing, and pushing, and pushing, instead of trying to get out before the damage had been fully done.

Do you see it, now? The sad truth behind my anger?

The flaw lay in me. For thinking I could turn Brelyesis’s nature to my advantage, more sodding fool me. And worse, less excusable still, I did it again and again and again. I took his food, I took his map, I took his _bait_.

And in the end he took my life. He took all our lives. For a little gold. And because I was too arrogant, too sure of myself, and couldn’t look past that pride and that surety to see what it was that I had done.

No, no, don’t look at me like that – I am no wight, I am as alive as you are. I just mean – well, you are young, by rights I’m not sure that I should be the one to tell you this. Because – you have this work as a scribe, yes, and it is good? Good. And a family, no doubt – parents, grandparents? A mate, or someone you would like – ah, I knew it. Pretty thing like you, there had to be someone.

But. All that is to say – you can leave this work, if need be. There may be some hardship involved for the family, if they depend upon you, but essentially you are a free creature who chooses this work, and you are also free to choose another if someday this demands something that you do not wish to give.

Good for you, little one. Do not ever let anyone take that from you.

I say this because someone – a lord, a prince, a queen, a _gentleman_ – will try. And it will be very easy indeed for them to succeed: all it takes is a slip on your part.

Put your x [scribe’s note: signature?] to the wrong piece of paper, and a gentleman will own you. Your body is theirs, to do what work they deem you most suited to do; your work is theirs, to use or dispose of as they see fit. And all of this is good and right in the eyes of laws and gods because you gave your consent: anything that follows, you must have allowed. And if you try to escape your bonds in terror once you have seen them for what they are, then neither laws nor gods will succor you. You are in the wrong, for as long as the gentleman holds that piece of paper with your x [scribe’s note: signature?]. Laws and gods will turn you away when you seek them; they will hunt you down when you do not. And maybe that means there is a problem with gods and with laws, but I am not a learned man, and I can only explain to you the problem with gentlemen.

Grim, is it not? Oh, little one. It becomes grimmer still. Do you want to know my price? What it cost Brelyeis to have a fighter at his command, to scour hidden tombs and stir ancient evils? It must have taken a lot of gold, yes, or a great deal of honor?

No. It did not. The price of a fighter that day proved to be only eight pieces of gold – the same sodding price as a cup of sweet sodding wine.

[the elf sighed]

I think I am done. There is more I could say, but – well, I do not know how this tale will end, not yet, and I have said all that I wanted to say for now. Let me see the pages?

Beautiful. Thank you. Your gold? Here. And an extra, for the care you took, and my regrets at the loss of such a fair hand. What? Yes, it is fine work, and I am only sorry that I must destroy it. Yes, I am sure. I will burn it. Why? I was told that it would be better to record the story, undamming the words inside me by placing them somewhere else, so – here they are. And if I destroy them, then that means they are gone, yes?

Well, you might be right, but I think I must try all the same. Thank you again for your work, and I wish you joy of your remaining evening.

You are still writing all I say, eh? No, it’s all right, I am done now –

No, wait! One last thing.

If I tell you my name, can you write that too? It may be vain of me, but – I think this deserves more than my x [scribe’s note: signature?].

No, I can’t spell it. I don’t know the letters. I can say it. Will that work? Can you do that?

**_Kaehlan_ **


End file.
